386 
EDITORIAL. 
veterinarians. The operation, as performed by Gunther as long 
ago as 1853, is described by Stockfelt as follows:* “The horse 
turned on his back, has his head and neck well stretched; an in¬ 
cision is made on the median line, dividing the cricoid cartilage 
and several rings of the trachea ; the wound kept open by blunt 
hooks; the left cartilage was seized with a tenaculum, drawn 
down and a piece three-fourths of an inch in length and one 
inch in width cut out.” It appears by this description that the 
entrance to the larynx is effected in a manner very different from 
that which Prof. Smith recommends and practices in his various 
modes of operating. Stockfelt recommends, later, the operation 
of arytenodectomy, the larynx having been entered somewhat 
in the same manner as by Gunther, and the incision of the median 
line involving the same structures as Dr. Fleming’s methods, but 
also , several rings of the trachea .f Professor Moller agrees with 
Gunther, not only that the dyspnea is not caused by the trans¬ 
verse position of the vocal cord, but by the sinking of the aryte¬ 
noid cartilage, and he is also of the opinion that, instead of remov¬ 
ing this cartilage, it should be spared, and he therefore recom¬ 
mends one or the other of his own methods of operation, f In 
the first it is his design to produce anchylosis of the articulation 
between the cricoid and the arytenoid cartilages, on the paralyzed 
side; and in the second, a severer mode, he aims to reduce the 
development of cicatricial structure in the atrophied crico¬ 
arytenoid muscle. 
This brief review of laryngeal surgery shows, evidently, that 
for over thirty-five years the entrance into the larynx was already 
known, and had even been followed by some satisfactory results. 
The fact that nothing more has been accomplished in the same 
direction until recently may be accounted for by referring it to a 
disinclination on the part of veterinary practitioners to venture 
upon further experimentation, in consequence of their apprecia¬ 
tion of the differences which exist in the various pathological 
changes in which the roaring originates, together with the practi- 
*Dan, VI., page 27. 
fChir. II. 
X Centralblatt, 1886. 
